Friday, August 10, 2018

Baby Boomers -- Fools for the City

How do you like the
new view that my wife, Marie, and I have? Or our new neighbor, Billy Penn, who
looms over our new home in Philadelphia?

Yep, we have
finally made the move that we talked about (or bored our friends with) for the
last 20 years. We ditched our home in the northwest suburbs and have relocated
to Bella Vista, if not the heart of the city, at least one its main arteries.

It turns out we’re
part of a trend, not that we have ever been particularly trendy. Consider
this stat: Between 2009 and 2015, the number of renters in Philadelphia aged 55
and older jumped 22 percent (compared to an eight percent jump among millennials).
As you poll or otherwise probe our generational peers who made this move, we
find that our own reasons and drivers were similar. We downsized from our
modest, though still oversized, 4BR suburban home, which had at least two more
bedrooms than we needed. We don’t have kids at home anymore, having
successfully educated them, kept them out of jail, and made them into model,
tax-paying Americans. Thus, schools aren't an issue for us anymore. (If they
were, Philly would be a bad bet).

Much to Do and
View

Additionally,
Marie and I are culture vultures, and the city is awash with museums, theater, exhibits,
lectures and the like. On the greener side of things, recent Philly
administrations invested in parks and other open space, as well as parking.

Excellent restaurants
have long been a given in Philadelphia. And as a follow up to them, there are
many hospitals and other healthcare facilities to tend to my clogging arteries
and soaring glucose levels. Believe me, I’ll be looking for a new endocrinologist
there.

There is also
lifestyle. The area we moved from was a lovely place to raise our two kids, but
once we stepped outside our traditional Colonial for a walk, there was little
to do or even see. Heck, there were hardly any sidewalks, fercrissake. But yesterday,
I walked to the local hardware store in my new neighborhood, and I saw more in
that five-block walk than I did in the last two decades in my burbs. Plus the
walk itself was good for my aging constitution.

Despite what may be counterintuitive to city haters, Philadelphia is affordable
for us. Even on a fixed income, our years of equity building and selling my
soul just to have a couple of pensions have given us more money for housing than
most of the poor millennials who are loaded with college debt. (Note: Data from
TenantCloud, a property management software service, show that nearly one-third
of all urban applications are for renters over age 60. Another sign of the
influx of boomers.)

Planning is
Essential

Making this move
was not a piece of cake. Decluttering nearly four decades of marriage and packing
up an old life to make way for a new one in smaller quarters was not easy. But
we were systematic about it. We kept a large poster board in our kitchen, and
we covered it with Post-its to mark the things we had to do to make this move
happen. That included primarily of deciding where we wanted to go, then getting
our own home ready to sell.

The second part
was harder and took more time to do. It took us about 18 months to empty the four-bedroom
house we owned for nearly three decades (to the day, coincidentally; we turned
it over to the new owners on the day after our 26th anniversary of
purchasing it). It’s amazing what things we call “shit” you can accumulate in
that time. Extra CDs and DVDs went to the local library, until they cried “Uncle!”
Unwanted or ignored miscellanea, such as books, artwork and the like went to Goodwill
and other organizations. We hired junkers like JDog Junk Removal & Hauling
to haul stuff away either for charitable donation or just to trash. Our
contribution to the growing landfill problem in the USA.

Then we had to
get our home ready, and there was much to do. It’s amazing how easily you can
overlook certain things in your home when you are dealing with more mundane
issues, oh, say like raising a couple of kids, figuring out how to contribute
to their college education and their weddings, and replacing your job during the
Great Recession. So in a relatively short time, we replaced the windows,
replaced the roof, spruced up the bathrooms, and repainted and recarpeted the
house.

These things work
great in a sellers’ market. We put up our “for sale” sign on a Tuesday, and by
the following Wednesday, we had two agreements of sale at our asking price. (We
chose the one that had no contingencies.)

Living for the
City

Next came the
critical task of planning our new location. Did you see the reference above to
a “sellers’ market?” That tiny detail made our search more challenging, and it
took several months. (I suggest that you pick a reliable realtor, which seems obvious but is easy to overlook or flub. In our case, we were served by Ryan Kanofsky. He came to us when he followed up an online inquiry that Marie made. He e-mailed her, asking if she was looking; she said not yet. Ryan checked in with her patiently for five years. He was our guy, always turning over stones, making himself available on weekends, and advising us when he thought we were too enamored of a particular property. In the end, he, with help from his associate Caitlin Beck, came through for us.)We shopped several downtown Philly locations, including
Fairmount, Brewerytown, Queen Village, Center City and the Graduate Hospital
area. All terrific, all worthy of consideration. But we landed in Bella Vista, the
section considered the original Italian-American section of the city (even
though early citizens also included Irish immigrants and African Americans who
were former slaves).

Bella Vista is Italian for “beautiful view,” but it’s not the original name for
the area. That name was part of a rebranding campaign in the early 1970s. Though
Italian Americans still make up a large percentage of the population today,
Bella Vista can still boast a good deal of the cultural diversity that we
couldn’t get in the suburbs, including neighbors who are African American,
Vietnamese and Mexican. We are so looking forward to this aspect of our new
climes.

Our new home was
voted “best neighborhood to live in Philadelphia” by Niche.com in 2016. There
are plenty of parks and other green space, which are supported through a
multitude of volunteers. The volunteer groups also produce public events in the
parks such as summer concert series, yoga, and outdoor movies. There is a
permanent community garden at 10th and Kimball, and the local athletic scene
includes the sport that’s just right for an aging Italian American like me --
bocce.

So excuse me, I
have to drop this blog to run to John’s Water Ice up the street for a
traditional lemon ice and a soft pretzel. The prices are good, and the commute
there is minimal. Just don’t tell my endocrinologist.

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About Me

I am a speaker/speechwriter/presentation coach, as well as a communication and marketing consultant. In general, an all-around communicator who has touched every single aspect of corporate communications, in every single medium.